


How It Should Have Ended: The Rise of Ben and Rey Skywalker

by The_Hobbit_Ninja



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo - Freeform, Happy Ending, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Rewriten, Reylo - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 11,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21920746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Hobbit_Ninja/pseuds/The_Hobbit_Ninja
Summary: *SPOILERS FOR TROS*This story is set in the time during and after Ben and Rey's first kiss in The Rise of Skywalker. I, being the die-hard Reylo fan that I am, was appalled that Disney wouldn't keep Ben alive and let Rey and Ben be happy together after years of loneliness. I got the idea for this story, (Anakin's part, at least) from a YouTube comment that I can no longer locate. I hope the creator doesn't mind me using part of their idea! I tried to stay in character and give each person the voice they would have had... let me know how I did! I would sooooo appreciate if you guys would leave some comments!
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47





	1. Rey

Rey

She was numb. Completely exhausted. Too drained to even feel pain. But still she could feel the ripping hurt, the searing abandonment when Ben fell to the ground and left her. She could still feel the warmth of his hand on her back, the pressure of his lips, the wonderfully safe feeling of being in his arms. She had been lonely for her entire life. Every person that healed that loneliness for a moment had been taken away from her. Her parents sold her. Han Solo was killed. Luke was afraid of her. Finn was there, but he could never understand her fully. Leia was gone. Kylo Ren had offered her his hand, and she, refusing to give in to her screaming need for a person to banish her loneliness, had refused it. She wanted to take the hand inside the thick black gloves, not the hand that had killed Ben’s father. Finally, Kylo had abandoned the gloves, and the mask, and the furious red glow of the dark side. He had come to her as Ben. When she had awoken just a few minutes ago, she could only remember Palpatine and the mental and physical torture that had been her encounter with him. But when she took a breath, she felt his arms around her and his body heat protecting her. She had sat up in wonder, and as she looked into his eyes she saw no remaining trace of darkness. Only fear. The aching burning fear that she would hate him. Hate him for what he had done, hate him for having the audacity to touch her, to hold her. She knew suddenly that she was his last hope. If she rejected him, hated him, he would shatter. She sat up, and with sudden joy, she whispered his name. His real name. The name she wasn’t afraid to love. Ben. As she reached out to him, touched his face gently, avoiding the scar she had given him when he went by the name the galaxy feared, his eyes changed. The fear was gone. Now there was only a confused mix of longing and contentment. She looked into those eyes for just a second longer, and then she kissed him. And in that simple motion, as his arms circled around her and joy radiated from him, her loneliness shattered. It was gone, for the first time ever. She finally pulled away, and a smile split his face for the first time in a decade. She was so glad of everything. But then his smile faded. He fell. He left her alone. Again. Words could not express the hurt.

She didn’t cry. She knew that if she cried right then, in Palpatine’s cavern, with Ben gone forever, she would never stop. So instead she stood up. She grabbed the light sabers, and she walked out. Out of the room, out of the cave, out of her mind. She made it to her ship after several hours of walking, getting lost in the foggy wasteland. She ignited the engine, which sputtered and then roared. Without even knowing what she was doing, she lifted off and flew away from that planet forever. Still, she did not cry. Her face had turned to granite, her limbs to solid ice. Her hands moved over the controls, and her muscles tensed flexed and released without her. She somehow managed to guide the Millennium Falcon to the planet where the remaining Resistance was gathered. She sensed the joy and festivity before she even landed the ship. Her brain was off, but her perception was heightened. The joy made her angry. Irrationally, intensely angry. She wanted to storm out of the ship and strangle the people who were laughing and shouting and singing. She hated her own anger, but she couldn’t contain it. Slowly, she reigned it in, breathing deeply the way Luke taught her to do on his island in the middle of an ocean in the middle of nowhere. She knew right then why he had gone. One person can only hurt so much for so long. After a few minutes, or maybe seconds, maybe hours, she pulled the lever and walked down the opening ramp. She walked through the crowd, and the crowd didn’t notice her. She was glad of that, at least. And then Finn was there, and Poe, and they were trying to hug her, trying to congratulate and thank and praise and ask questions. And then she cried. She didn’t care what anyone thought, she couldn’t contain the welling abandonment and internal disaster any longer. She sank to the ground, shaking and melting, sobbing and choking. She was not a pretty crier. She didn’t care. Finn knelt beside her, concern and fear radiating in his energy. Poe stood there, apparently completely taken aback by this strong, powerful, unconquerable, last and only Jedi melting into a scared child. She was limp as Finn lifted her into his arms. She didn’t care if he hugged her or dropped her off a cliff. She was completely done.


	2. Ben

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In my story, the chapters alternate between Rey's and Ben's perspectives. This one is from Ben's. I tried to describe Jedi heaven/ where the force ghosts come from... I hope I did it justice!

Ben 

He awoke suddenly, with a jolt. He sat up, confused and disoriented, with intense light shining into his eyes. For a moment he was still, taking stock of his surroundings, trying to place his location, and coming up empty handed. His memory was frustratingly fuzzy, with snapshots and hazy shapes floating around in his head. The only thing he was acutely aware of was the light, yellow and blue, dancing around him like the reflection of flames on a wall. He was in a circular enclosed space, and the material beneath him was strange, sinking and rising, pulsing as if it was alive. And then he saw her. His mother. Leia. She was exactly how he remembered her as a child, younger than she was when she died, her face youthful and glowing with joy at the sight of him. He was struck by the odd thought that in another time, another place, another reality, he would have shied away from this woman. In a dimension that barely escaped his consciousness, he would have been angry and hurt to see Leia so happy. He couldn’t imagine being angry with his mother now. He stood up shakily on the confusing floor and embraced his mother, filled with joy to see her but frustrated with the foggy memory that would not accurately tell him why he used to hate her. After a moment, she pulled away, so she could look into his face. “Welcome home, Ben.” she whispered. He smiled, but he knew, somehow, that this was not home. He didn’t know where or when or how he could be home, but he promised himself that he would be. Eventually. 

It took him a while to adjust to the idea of being a Force ghost. He had been visited by plenty of them, Jedis and Sith alike throughout his career as Kylo Ren. But to be one? That took some getting used to. His memories of life before the dancing lights and the glowing people and the shifting tilting reality he now occupied were still shadowy. But he had finally remembered a few days ago why he used to hate his mother. He was Kylo Ren. The thought was crushing. He had murdered thousands of people, hated his family, lost everything. But no one here seemed to care. They always reminded him that he was here because of what he had given his life for. What? He wondered. This new place was beautiful. It shone with the colors of the light, green things sprouting everywhere, intense yellow sunlight, shimmering deep blue water. He met people he never thought he would see. He embraced his father, bowed before Yoda, made peace with Luke. They were all here, all glad to see him. But something didn’t feel right. Even in the midst of abundance, joy, peace, forgiveness, he felt a corner of himself was empty. The hole in the paradise became larger every day, gnawing at the corners of his consciousness, whispering memories into his ear. He knew there was something he didn’t remember, and he knew that he absolutely must remember it. It was a name, a voice, a feeling. A dark place, on a dark planet, filled with dark people. All accept one. One person that was light. Lighter than the place he was in now, because this person’s light was steady, never flickering like the dancing lights in this place. He needed to remember this person. He had a half-formed thought that if he could find that person, he would be home.

Finally, one day, he met his grandfather. He had wondered if Darth Vader was in this place. He discovered that Darth Vader was not. But Anakin Skywalker was. Just as Kylo Ren was not here, but Ben was. Anakin took one glance at Ben Solo and knew that something was wrong. Ben didn’t waste time or words, because in that moment he knew that Anakin could help him remember. “Please” he whispered, or maybe yelled, he couldn’t tell. “There is someone from another place that I need to remember. I don’t know who they are, or where they were, or why they are so important. Wait. I think I do. I think, whoever it was… I think I loved them. Help me, grandfather.” 

Anakin gave him a searching, piercing look, and Ben felt as if he was scrutinizing his very soul. Then, after what seemed like a decade of examination, Anakin instructed him to sit cross legged, and close his eyes. Ben felt the pressure of his grandfather’s hands on his shoulders, hands that were stronger than he expected. The pressure grew stronger, until he realized that it was no longer the weight of hands but the weight of memories. They flowed through him suddenly, wrenching him away from the world of constant light back back deep into time that was lost until now.

He found himself in a dark cave, a chasm deep in the earth, and he realized that his body ached and he had a stabbing pain in his side. His hair was in his eyes, and his left arm was twisted under him. A jagged rock was digging into his spine. He couldn’t move for a moment, but he heard a fierce struggle going on above him. Blue light flashed, making giant shadows on the ceiling of the cave. The memory of a terrible darkness… Palpatine, he realized, throwing him off this cliff. He still didn’t know who was at the top of this cliff, but he felt more than ever that he had to reach her. Her. The person I am looking for is a her. Then, all at once, with a long shrill scream and a burst of blue light, the struggle was over. He needed to reach the top. He dragged himself up, somehow finding the strength to climb the steep rocks up to the rim of the cliff. Finally he yanked himself onto flat ground. He saw a small, limp figure lying on the ground about 100 feet away. This was her. This was the person he had to reach. He crawled the last hundred feet in an act of sheer willpower. The girl lying on the ground was pale, and most of her showing skin was bloody. But her face was beautiful. She was dead. He realized that this knowledge rocked him to his core. He pulled her limp body into his lap, holding her like a child. He had done this before, when he was on this planet for the first time. The memories were solidifying. He rocked her gently, needing her to be alive. He placed his hand on her stomach, and with every cell in him he wished that she was alive. Gave her life. Then he felt her breathing. She sat up, a look of wonder and joy in her eyes. His immediate excitement at her life was quickly replaced by fear. Fear that she would hate him, resent him. He felt an overwhelmingly intense and desperate need to kiss her. But now, under the weight of all the evil memories, he realized that he had hurt her over and over, strapped her down and looked inside her head while she cried and struggled, tried to murder her friends, taunted her with her loneliness, delivered her to Snoke when she had come to save him, let his master torture her and destroy all she loved. He had been a monster. But that monster was named Kylo Ren. He had been abandoned at every turn, betrayed and doubted, manipulated and used, and he was nothing more than a scared child with a red light saber. Now he was Ben. He was no longer a monster. And he so badly wanted her to know that. He wanted to kiss her, to prove to her that he loved her deeply and without alterior motive. However, though her name still escaped his thoughts as his newfound memories struggled to pick it up, he remembered how he had hurt her. And he knew, without question and without doubt, that kissing her without her permission or her love would be the final injustice, the deepest cut. His eyes pleaded and hoped she could forgive him. And then she trailed her fingertips across his cheek, gently assuring him that she knew who he had become. His heart broke with relief. Her eyes were warm and joyful. He saw her eyes flick down to his lips, before she came in to kiss him with a quick motion that said everything he desperately needed to hear. He circled his arm around her waist, pulling her toward him and taken aback by the joy he felt as he felt her pressed against him and her lips closed with his. And as he felt the joy radiating from her and met it with his own overwhelming sense of completion at last, he knew. This was the girl that he needed. The person whose presence was so essential that her energy was present even in his new dimension. He had found her. Rey.


	3. Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with Finn's reaction to Rey's story. I expect he would be pretty shocked to hear what he did...:p I hope I captured his reaction well... This chapter is from Rey's perspective.

Rey

When she woke up, she was in a hospital bed, with way too many people gathered around her. It seemed as if everyone she knew that was still alive was… still alive. All the memories came crashing back over her like relentless breakers. Had Ben really died? Had he really left her as soon as she felt free to love him? Was he really gone forever? Yes. She knew he had. Everyone was asking her questions. She had to pull herself together. If she kept thinking about him she would start crying again, and what the resistance needed was answers, not their leader breaking down randomly. She let her eyes close for three seconds. One. He is gone. Two. nothing you can say or do or think will change that. Three. Now get up and be the leader they need. She got up. She answered questions. She recounted her fight with Palpatine countless times. She told them that Kylo Ren was dead. That he was gone, and nothing to be feared anymore. Just saying that name made her cringe. She knew that if he was there he would hate that she used that name. If the name made her cringe, the cheers and celebration at his death made her sick. They didn’t know him. She thought. They only knew the sacred hurt child with a light saber. They can’t be blamed. She blamed them anyway. She just needed to be alone. But they needed her there. So she stayed. Finally, after countless hours, she was able to slip away, and she gladly let Finn follow her. She was in desperate need of a confidante. They sat in the corner of the Millennium Falcon and she told him everything. Every three sentences or so he stopped her for an explanation, but she was unspeakably relieved when he was not phased by her dark lineage. However, when she got to the part involving Ben Solo, his acceptance turned to rage. You mean to say he picked you up? “I was -, he was trying to-” You mean to say that he picked you up when you were asleep? He shrieked incredulously. “I was dead, actually.” she whispered. You mean to say that he picked you up when you were dead? Wait, you were DEAD? “There we go,” she said. “I was waiting for you to notice something other than the picking up. I was dead, and he picked me up to heal me.” “sure he was. Healing” Finn muttered. “More like wanted you in his lap” “I am going to pretend that I didn’t hear what you just said, and keep telling the story.” Rey’s eyes were partially amused, partly angry. She managed to keep telling, even though she knew he would be less than pleased with the next part. “So he put his hand on my stomach and-” He put his hand on your- “shut it! Yes, he did. And he brought me back to life. He saved me. I want you to know that he was not a monster. You need to know that. And then well he… I mean I… I mean” “what?” asked Finn. Don’t say you forgave the man for… for… everything!” “what I was going to say is he kissed me.” WHAT? “Or I kissed him! I don’t really remember.” Rey realized that she was just digging herself deeper at this point. She couldn’t tell if the bewildered look in Finn’s eyes made her want to laugh or cry. Then he yelled, louder than necessary, to Poe on the other side of the ship. “Poe! Rey was making out with-” “Holy Hell! That is not the point!” she shrieked. “The point is that I thought you deserved to know why I have been such a mess. And now I need to make a plan. I have no idea where to go now.” But even as she said it, she knew where she had to go. Home. At least, the only home she ever knew. The dessert in Jaku.


	4. Ben

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if force ghosts can give their life force, but I am guessing they can. I took the idea for Anakin giving away his life force as a tribute to Padme from a YouTube comment that I can no longer locate. I hope the creator doesn't mind me fleshing out the idea a little!

Ben

He knew who she was! He felt released as weeks of confusion melted. But the happiness was quickly replaced by urgency and purpose. He felt himself floating up through a thick gallery of shadowy memories, breaking the surface of his new dimension. Anakin was sitting there, his intense gaze fixed on Ben. Ben didn’t care what he thought. “I found her! Rey! I need to go to her. I can barely feel her from here, but I can tell that she is lonely. Please, is there a way? Any way to go back to her. You know, not as a see through blue temporary thing.” Anakin seemed completely unphased by his request. The only sign that he ever heard was that his eyes narrowed ever so slightly. He stared Ben in the face for what seemed like an eternity. He stared until his urgency slowed and his breathing quieted. “There is no way.” Ben’s shoulders slumped without him even noticing. Suddenly he hated the dancing light, the overdone lush growth that was just too green, the whole beautiful prison. “There is no way to return to solid form without great cost.” Anakin corrected. Ben thought he could almost detect a chuckle in his grandfather’s voice. He realized that Anakin must have been hearing his thoughts as he rebelled against paradise. “What cost? What can I do?” Ben hadn’t realized how much he missed being real. Solid. Human. Hadn’t realized how much he missed the small fiery kind warrior girl that he had given his life for. “It isn’t what you must do.” said Anakin with a hint of sadness in his voice. “It is what I can do for you.” “I don’t understand. What can you do for me?” Ben wanted him to get to the point and stop staring at him with those keen green eyes. “Let me tell you a story.” said Anakin. 

Pain and misery and guilt and pleasure and joy and darkness took turns controlling his grandfather’s face. “When I was younger than you I loved someone like you say you love this girl. She was everything to me. I would have done anything for her. She was pregnant with your mother and your uncle. I was convinced that she would die and leave me, just like my mother had. I couldn’t handle that eventuality, so I sought refuge in the dark power of Palpatine. He told me he could show me how to keep her alive forever. Teach me to outrun death and keep her safe. I believed him, fool that I was. I let him into my head, and he destroyed me. He turned my love for my wife into a love for power. He turned me against her and everyone else. I was corrupted by my new abilities, and I made her fear me instead of love me. I turned to the dark side to save her, and by doing so I killed her.” Anakin’s voice broke. “I would do anything to try again, to love her as she deserved. I can never do that. It is too late for me. But it is not too late for you. Tell me Ben. Do you love Rey? Do you truly want to be restored to life for her sake and no one else’s?” Ben thought for a moment. He didn’t want to make a mistake at this most critical point. He thought of Rey, her eyes when she had woken in his arms and her face when she said his name. He thought of kissing her finally and feeling her breathing. He thought of her fiery spirit, the tenacious, fun-loving, expressive, powerful, brave girl that he had wanted by his side. He thought of her family and her adopted family. He realized with a pang of shock and guilt that every one she had ever cared for had left her. I am on that list he thought. And with that, he knew what he had to do. He refused to be one of the people who abandoned her and took a piece of her with them when they ran away. He would not leave her again. 

Alright, Ben said, explain it to me one more time so I know what I’m getting into.” “I will give you all that is left of my life force.” said Anakin. “This will restore you to human form and let you live out your days as long as you would have otherwise. You will be returned to the exact location that you left from, so in your case, Palpatine’s cave. From there you can make your way to Jaku, the planet that Rey is staying on.” “But what will that do to you?” Ben asked. “When I gave my energy away I died. But you are already gone.” “I will simply cease to exist. I will never be able to return, either to human form or to the force. I will be gone. My ghost will be non-existent.” “How can you do this?” asked Ben, guilt in his eyes. “If I could have another chance with Padme, I would do anything. I can’t. But I can give my grandson another chance. And I will.” with that, the discussion was clearly over. Ben sat down cross legged on the pulsing ground. He took a last look at the fluttering blues and greens and yellow lights. He felt the ground moving beneath him, and it gave him courage. He knew he would not return to this place until he died for the final time. Anakin Skywalker placed his hands on his grandson’s shoulders. He too took one last look, but his would have to last forever. Anakin concentrated with a power he had not exercised in decades. Slowly, the last of his energy left him. Ben Solo took a deep breath. He felt the life flowing back into him, all the feelings, memories, sensations that he knew once returning. But this time he was different. As he materialized and felt solid bone and flesh returning, he knew that finally, he was not a monster. He was ready to go home.


	5. Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is from Rey's perspective. I had a feeling that she returned to Jaku to live in peace with her new-found answers after the end of TROS, but I hated that she would return to the same lonely life she started with, missing her soulmate. So I fixed that:)

Rey

When she woke, she knew immediately that it would be a good day. It made no sense that it would be any different than another day, but she knew it would be. She sat up blearily and fumbled for a glass of water. She had been on her home planet for six months, and still she was readjusting to the hot parched desert. It was a lonely life, but Rey had insisted that no one accompany her, even when Finn had insisted that she needed protection from sand trolls and other things she had dealt with herself since the age of seven. She did not know why she needed to be alone. She didn’t want to be lonely, but the only person who ever truly understood her was gone. Forever. His name was just the most recent addition to the list of people who had abandoned her. She forced herself to think of him in a matter-of-fact way, but just the thought made her throat tighten with emptiness. She pushed thoughts of waking up in his arms away, telling herself that she was a ridiculous little girl who couldn’t get over her first crush. Even as she thought those things, she knew they were wrong. Her relationship with Ben had been anything but shallow. 

She made her breakfast, taking pleasure as she did every morning in the privilege of choosing her own food and not having to choke down some spoiled rations doled out by heartless slave-drivers. After breakfast, she headed outside to tend to the garden she was trying to coax out o the parched ground. She hadn’t had much luck with her own non-existent gardening abilities, so she made the plants grow with a tiny sliver of her life energy. It felt a bit like cheating, but they grew. As she turned to go back into her tiny hut, she caught a speck of something dark against the rising sun over the flat landscape. She wondered what it could be. Traders and travelers and even civilians were scarce on Jaku after the First Order’s slave trade had been wiped out. She watched the speck curiously, waiting for shortening distance to morph the shape into something she recognized. As the figure drew closer, she could make out a human form, a man, dressed in black. Black was a strange color for a desert with a blazing sun, she mused passively. Now she was really curious. The man was getting closer, now only five hundred feet or so from her house. There was something familiar about his gate, a purposeful, confident gate, though tentative at times. Was this man coming to her house, and not to the town? Rey drew in breath sharply. She new that face. Even from two hundred feet she knew. She knew, and yet she didn’t dare hope. She started to move forward, her brain commanding her not to get excited, as there was no way this could be the person she needed it to be. And yet it was. She realized she was running. The man had stopped walking, and was simply waiting for her. And then she was there, not two inches from him. The look in his eyes was so complex she could barely read it, but she could pick out anxiety, excitement, terror, joy, pleasure, and a thousand other things, running over each other and spilling out of Ben Solo. Rey was suddenly happier than she had been since a certain time six months before in a cave on an abandoned planet. A smile, full of joy and pain and apprehension and disbelief, spread across her face. Ben! She whispered.


	6. Ben

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is from Ben's perspective. It is getting progressively harder to stay in-character, but I am trying! Let me know how I'm doing!

Ben 

She was there. He was feeling too much to even think. The emotions had been building since the beginning of his journey to Jaku. He couldn’t string thoughts together, but he was sure that his face was pretty confusing and intense looking. But when he heard his name come out of her mouth, all of it came spilling out. He kissed her with all the feeling he had stored up since the first time he saw her, the first time he carried her into his ship. He had held her for the wrong reasons then. Now he held her for the right reasons. He put an arm behind her back and an arm under her knees and lifted her into his arms. She ran her hand through his hair and he kissed her like he had dreamed of doing since he offered her his hand a year ago. Eventually he set her down and she just stood there, leaning into him, content beyond words. He put his arms around her, enjoying the feeling of her body pressed against him. Neither of them felt the need to move for quite some time. Ben certainly didn’t. Finally she took him to her house, and they sat at the table for a while, just enjoying the blissful reality that they were no longer alone, no longer two halves separated by sacrifice. They were together, and they were whole. Time ran off with Ben Solo, and he was surprised to see the desert sun sinking below the horizon. He used to hate the darkness. When he was Kylo Ren, he was expected to revel in the night, enjoy the very absence of light. He hated the feeling of being alone in the dark. But now he was not alone. He was home.


	7. Rey

Rey

Rey used to hate the dark. She would lie in the starless desert night as a child, missing her parents with an ache too deep for tears. She laid in the blackness as a young scavenger, wondering if she would ever escape the loneliness that haunted her dreams and sucked the joy out of her days. She hated the darkness that hung around her as tears streamed silently down her face the night after Han Solo left her. She was stricken by thick heavy freezing darkness in Palpatine’s cave, the darkness that no longer just haunted her but actively attacked her. She struggled to even live through the darkness the first night after Ben abandoned her. She hated darkness, always. Until tonight. Tonight the darkness was warm and comforting and perfect. She no longer had to face the quiet darkness alone. Instead she had the wonderful security of a warm body at her back, holding her and keeping her safe from the nightmares. She enjoyed the tall lean body curved around her small slight one reminding her that she was not alone. She breathed in the comfort of arms around her, letting her fall asleep without fear, without pain, without loneliness. As she drifted off, the joyful thought settled in her mind like a steadfast anchor keeping her from drifting away. As long as he was here, she would never have to be alone.

Ben.


	8. Part 2: Unbreakable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just kidding not the end! I got a request from a reader for me to continue the story so I am gonna do a full out alternate ending to TROS. If you just wanted Ben and Rey's happy ending, stop here. If you want an actual resolution, and an ending to The Rise of Skywalker that actually makes sense based on the name, read on!

Ben- 2 years later

Ben looked down into his daughter’s face. She was barely four hours old, but already she had wisps of curling black hair. Her face was so peaceful, her translucent eyelids rippled with blue veins, her tiny rosebud mouth resting in a slight pout, her long black eyelashes sweeping down to tickle the top of her cheek. She was so fragile in his arms. At first he hadn’t even wanted to touch her, she seemed so desperately breakable, but eventually her uncle had laid her in his arms, asserting that if he, Kylo Ben, could fight the love of his life with a laser sword for an hour on the wreckage of his grandfather's empire in the middle of an ocean, he could most certainly hold his own daughter. The child’s uncle was of course Finn, who had flown to the island the moment he heard that he could meet Rey’s children. He immediately adopted the title of uncle, and fussed over the twins with a level of pride totally disproportionate to his fake title and non-existant relation to the newborns. His presence was somewhat disagreeable to Ben, as Finn would call him Kylo Ben no matter how much Rey smacked him. However, Ben knew that if there was anyone who cared for Rey more than he did, it was Finn, so he grudgingly let him stay. What Ben really wanted to do was see his wife, but he didn’t want to disturb her until she had rested a little. Eventually he decided that he had had enough of not being near her, and handed his daughter to her beaming “uncle”. He gently approached Rey’s bed, kneeling beside her and just watching her sleep, watching her stomach rise and fall, proof that she was alive, she was his, and she would not leave him. He had entertained fears for her safety, as his grandfather’s love had died in childbirth only a few decades before. He had only mentioned these concerns to her briefly, as he didn’t want to let her know how much he shared Anakin’s insecurities, but he knew that she had sensed how deep his fear was rooted. However, she was alive, and his son was asleep on her chest. Slowly, groggily Rey opened her eyes, searching for him, and smiling contentedly when she found him right where she needed him to be. His mouth did not smile, he was still unused to showing such an obvious display of happiness, but his eyes were full of adoration as he kissed her forehead, then her eyes, then her mouth, as softly as if she might shatter at the slightest touch. He tenderly brushed a wisp damp curling hair behind her ear. Her eyes drifted closed once more, but she was not asleep. Almost inaudibly, she whispered, “Ben...What should we name them?” He had barely had time to think of names, let alone settle on one, but he heard himself say “the girl is Lucia.” and as he heard the name come out of his mouth he was sure it was the right one. A smile lighted up Rey’s face, and she gently rubbed her sons tiny back as he lay on her chest sleeping peacefully. “This little one is Jack”. Perfect. His eyes suddenly were very wet, and he was not very pleased with that. He tried to cough and turn away as if he had something in his eye, but Rey gently cupped his face in her hand and looked into his eyes with the gentle intensity that he had never seen in anyone but his soft kind fiery warrior girl. His voice cracked. “I love you.” he breathed. “I know.” He could have died right then, and he would have died happier than anyone in the galaxy.


	9. Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes. I brought him back again. Sorry, he is like the most evil character in Star Wars! I do not have the imagination to invent and destroy a WHOLE NEW villian:p Also I know this is a big time jump but they were like 25 or so in TROS so they aren't like ancient now;)

Rey-Twelve years later. 

She was falling. Falling, falling, into a bottomless abyss, farther and farther. The wind whipped her hair into her face, stinging her eyes, and the wind whistled in her ears and clothes. She tried desperately to grab on to something, anything, but safety slipped through her fingers. She twisted in the air, and panic rose in her throat as she wondered what she would hit at the bottom of whatever chasm she was plummeting through. THUDD SWSHHHHSHHHH! She hit the water feet first, thank goodness, but she shot down so far into the murky depths that her ears screamed for release from the pressure. The water was shockingly cold, taking her breath and wrenching it out of her body with icy fingers in her throat. She flailed, raw terror propelling her up through the gripping chill, till she broke the surface and sucked air into her lungs. She paddled frantically, somehow terrified of things that must be below her in the bottomless water. She reached the edge of the wide circular trap, clawing at the slippery crawling vines that tried to slide her back into the hole. With the strength of fear she pulled herself out, shivering uncontrollably. She was aware after a moment that somehow, although the water was beyond fridged, the air was warm and oppressively humid. She began to walk around the perimeter of the cave, her muscles wound tight as coiled springs, waiting to snap into action. The ceiling was so high it wasn’t visible, just inky blackness as far as the eye could see. The lower regions of the cave were lit with an eerie dim blue light, shimmering on the lake in the middle of the cave. Her spine prickled. She froze. The darkness suddenly became palpable, its own entity, writhing and pulsing. Evil. The surface of the lake rippled, and images swam across the water. Her heart stopped. Floating in the water was a moving picture of her twins, crying and pleading as they were lifted off the ground by a figure in a cloak. Using some horrid dark side of the force, he slammed them to the ground and their bodies shuddered and then stilled, bent at the wrong angles. She was horrified. Hot tears streamed down her face but she didn’t notice. The images flicking across the surface of the lake were violent and personal. The entire planet of Jaku imploding. The Millennium Falcon smashing into the ground. Lukes island on fire. And then Ben. She saw Ben surrounded by tall figures obscured by black robes, beaten and torn, struggling for breath. One of the robed figures raised an indescribable weapon and hit him hard. He doubled over, staggered, and while he was trying to regain balance he was kicked to the ground. He didn’t get up. He didn’t move. Instead he evaporated in a blue mist, just as he had done fifteen years ago. She couldn’t stand it. She screamed, not with words she knew, but with pure raw rejection, angry and terrified and crushingly lonely. “Who is here? What do you want? What are you? Show yourself, you miserable coward!” She was reckless with fury. For a moment no one answered, and she resolved to destroy the cave with her bare hands and kill whatever evil was here rather than let it out to destroy all she had waited so long to love. But before she could pointlessly attack the granite walls, a shuddering breath circled the chasm. A voice as old as evil itself and as cold as death whispered around the echoing chamber. “No one’s ever really gone…” Rey’s breath caught in her throat. A beat of silence, and then a piercing laugh of pure freezing haunting evil roared through the cave, bouncing off the walls and stopping the blood in her veins. Suddenly, a column of crackling blue lightning burst shockingly out of the center of the lake, shooting up through the endless blackness, spitting and crackling with raw hatred. Her brain rebelled. He was back.


	10. Ben

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Am I still in character? I'm trying! Let me know in the comments! I need some feedback people!

Ben

He was awake in a second. Rey was writhing beside him in bed, cold sweat covering her body. Tears were streaming down her face and she was gasping for air, choking on nothing. He put his hands on her wrists, neck, her face, frantically trying to see what was wrong with her. She almost screamed his name, shaking clawing at air like she was tortured. “Ben! Help me, Ben! No! No please, leave them alone! Ben don’t leave me again I can’t do it again! Nooo!” this last exclamation ended in a sob. She was hysterical, begging some unseen evil. He was frantic, desperate to see her, fiercely protective. He half picked her up, rocking her and almost yelling “Rey! Rey I’m here with you, you’re safe, I’m not going anywhere, oh Rey wake up! Wake up!” Suddenly she bolted up, and crackling threads of blue lighting sizzled out of her fingers, fizzling out instantly but leaving a crippling message behind. She gasped for breath, shivering uncontrollably. She wrapped him in a crushing hug tears streaming down her face. “Ben, Ben, stay with me, don't leave me alone!” “I’m not going anywhere! Rey, you’re safe!” He pulled her away and cupped her face in his hands, staring into her eyes with an intensity he hadn’t felt since he asked her to stand by his side years before. “I love you. Listen to me! I love you more than anything in the world. I will never leave you again. Look at me! Rey. I love you.” “Ben.” Her shivering stilled instantly, her eyes lost the glassy sheen and turned hard and cold as ice. “Ben, He’s back.”


	11. Lucia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The twins are thirteen at this point. This is from Lucia's (one of the twins) perspective. Do you like the names Jack and Lucia? I was trying to echo Luke and Leia without being repetitive... How did I do?

Lucia

She woke up with a snap, sitting up so fast her head hurt. Her mother was almost screaming and writhing around, and her father had her in his arms frantically trying to bring her out of whatever hellish dimension she was trapped in. Finally she jerked into reality, and an unearthly blue light sizzled from her hand, lighting up the room with blinding clarity for half a second. Her father held her face in his hands, trying to reassure her that she was safe, he was there with her, he loved her and he wasn’t going anywhere. Lucia could feel the terror seeping from her mother, the fierce almost angry protective energy radiating from her father. The emotion was so thick she was drowning in it. The fear filled her nose and mouth, and she felt her own thoughts clouding with all the outside input. Suddenly two words cut the air, breaking the cloud of suffocating terror, but slicing a chilling blade through all that heard it. “He’s back.” Before she could catch her breath her father was at her side, closing her small hand in both his own, looking into her eyes with an urgency she hadn’t seen in a long time. He was going to explain, but she knew immediately what she needed to do. “I know. I’ll pack.” She and her father had long talks all the time, but they talked for the pleasure of it and not because they needed to. They could hear what they needed to hear without words. For as long as she could remember it had been this way. Her father was the only person who truly understood her. Of course she loved her mother incredibly, but she shared a special bond with her father. From birth she and Jack had attached to their own parent specifically, and each pair quickly became inseparable, sharing a connection unique and almost palpable. She heard her parents whispering about it at night from time to time. They called it a force bond, the product of a diad, unheard of until now. A bond stronger than life and death. Unbreakable. She could just make out Jack in the blue black night, throwing things into a sack, almost falling over he was so sleepy. Her mother was moving around jerkily, almost mechanically. Her father never left her mother’s side, hovering like someone might come to take her away at any moment. Lucia ran outside, gulping in the cold clear predawn air, uncontaminated with emotion. She stared into the lightening horizon, changing incrementally from inky black to royal blue, then opening into a soft blue-gray tinged with glowing pink. Then it happened to fast she barely saw it. A sizzle of lightning, icy hot and poisonous blue, lit up the horizon for a millisecond. The refreshing dawn air turned chilling. She ran back inside, using all her energy to block what she had just seen from her memory. Within an hour, they were all in the Millenium Falcon, the ship that had been as big a part of her childhood as a family member. It had always felt like home. She didn’t know when she fell asleep, but she woke up on a tiny cot in a round hut constructed of crumbling irregular gray stones. Jack was just a foot or two away from her, staring at her with an unrivaled intensity. “Jack..” she ran her hand through her long black hair trying to get it out of her face, and rubbed the clinging sleep from her eyes. “Why are you looking at me like that?” “Dad said I couldn’t wake you up so I was hoping that if I stared hard enough you would somehow get the message and quit sleeping finally. You have to come see where we landed. You’ll never guess. Up, up, up!!. Come on!” She reluctantly rolled onto her feet and stumbled out into the blinding sunlight. Her eyes took a second to adjust, but before she even saw the landscape she felt the pulsing atmosphere of deeper light than sunlight. Deep rooted history. Powerful light. Powerful darkness. Her eyes slowly took in her surroundings. An island. In the middle of an ocean. In the middle of nowhere. Luke.


	12. Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is from Jack's (the other twin's) perspective.

Jack

They had been on the island for just a few days, but already he and Lucia had explored every rock and field and stream and corner they could reach. However, they had never entered the Jedi temple. No one told them what it was. They just knew. Whenever he wasn’t roaming around with Lucia, he was inches from his mother. He had seen her that night, felt the hysterical terror, horrific crushing loneliness coming off her in waves. He wanted to help her, to do anything to get her away from whatever surreal misery she was encased in. He would have, but he heard her screaming for Ben, his father, begging him to stay with her, trying to reach him, not feeling his arms wrapped around her or hearing his frantic reassurance. He knew she needed his father. When she finally relaxed into seemingly safe reality, stopped crying like a hunted animal caught in a trap, he realized he had been holding his breath. He gulped so much air into his lungs it hurt. He needed her safe. When she hurt, he hurt. Now, on the strange new island they were told was just a temporary home, he felt her constantly uneasy, wound so tight that she might snap at any second. He shadowed her every step, trying to absorb as much of her pain as he could to keep it off her shoulders. She told him over and over that she was okay, that she didn’t need him to take anything off her, but he knew she needed it. He was jarred loose from the thoughts that wrapped his mind in constant circling swirls. “Jack. Come with me. I need to show you something.” His mother leaped through the rocky terrain with surprising lightness and purpose, checking now and then to see if he was still close. He knew where they were going. Not a fact. Just a feeling. A few minutes later he was sitting with his mother on either side of a large slab of rock on the brink of a towering cliff, freezing deep blue waves assaulting the base of the cliff with tireless repetition. The sun was setting, and the twin suns were turning the horizon soft and blazing at once. “Jack,” She looked stared into the glowing horizon, but her energy was focused on him. “Jack, do you know why we are here?” He didn’t know what he was about to say, what he was saying even at that moment, but as he gave it words he knew it all was true. “We came here because a evil as old as time is hunting us. But… we didn’t come her to escape it. We came to face it with every last shred of light we have. Together.” “Jack.” she turned to face him and grabbed his hands, linking them across the ancient stone where Luke had given his own last shreds of light. “We can send you and Lucia somewhere else. Your father and I, we would die for you in a heartbeat. However, you should know that for you and I, your father and your sister, all safety is temporary. The dark side will never abandon the search for us. But we can buy you safety. Temporary, but long. But there is another way. If you and Lucia choose to stay, we can offer only love, and the protection that comes with that power. However, you will have to face that darkness with us. If you stay, you will have to fight. If you stay, we fight together. Our last resistance. Our last shreds of light.” He didn’t even have to think about it. The answer was clear as still water. “We will stay. I know Lucia would fight to the last, and so would I. if we die, we die together. The four of us are eternally linked. Strongest together. This evil, whatever it is, is not strong enough to separate us.” “My Jack. Your light is so strong. Lucia’s force is stronger than any her age has ever been. Together we will fight. Rey, Ben, Jack, Lucia. The last Skywalkers.” together, they whispered the last word. “Unbreakable.” The sun set. The light flickered out. They knew what was coming. The light of day was gone. But theirs was stronger than ever.


	13. Rey & Ben

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doubling up, both perspectives...

A storm was gathering. She felt it, crackling in the corners of her mind, fraying the edges. Night had fallen by the time she and Jack returned to the little stone huts they were occupying. She sent Jack to the larger one he and Lucia shared. She stumbled into the smaller one, exhausted. Every step was weighted with the unstoppable certainty of the storm that was descending on the island. On the planet. On the galaxy. On her. She needed Ben. She needed his strength to remind her of her own. She made it into the hut, but Ben was already there, sitting cross legged on the floor. Lucia was sitting the same way, their knees touching, her small hands linked with Ben’s large warm ones. “We’ll stay. We’ll fight. Together, the four of us. The last of us.” Lucia’s eyes glowed in the half light of dusk. Her eyes were singular, had been from birth. They were pale blue, Rey’s eyes. Ben’s dark velvety brown ringed around the blue. But when she was frigidly terrified, incredibly angry, or unflinchingly determined, the colors seemed to blend and her eyes glowed a strange shade of yellow in the dark. Her great grandfather's yellow. Her ancestry, the good and the bad, shone through her gaze.  
Ben tenderly stroked her hair, wavy and black like his own. He loved his daughter with a love too deep for words. He whispered something inaudible into her ear as he wrapped her in his arms, and she smiled contentedly. He released her after a moment, and turned to Rey. He saw immediately that she needed him like oxygen. He was about to tell Lucia that they needed to be alone, but she was already getting up. “I know.” She whispered. He was eternally amazed by her extensive understanding. He gave her hand a quick squeeze, and she slipped out like a shadow. Ben stood up and Rey sank into him. “Ben” her head pounded. She could feel the darkness creeping, eating at the corners of her mind, sucking the hope out of her, wrapping itself around her like freezing vines. “Ben he’s trying to get in my head. He’s knocking knocking knocking, rattling around in my brain. Ben he’s breaking me. I can’t fight him. He’s part of me. Help me!” “Rey. Vader is a part of me. The Emperor is a part of you. We can’t change that. But a dyad is stronger than blood. Stronger than something as fragile as lineage. We have both been called by darkness. Both have chosen light. We are balance, bound by the force, united in the light. Our children came from a balance purer than any seen before. Rey, we may not win. We may not even live. But Rey…” He laced his fingers with hers, and her grip tightened, strength flowing back into the last jedi. “We will not be broken.” She stood up straighter and kissed him, hard, her fear banished in the rising light. He wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her halfway off the ground. He was always taken by surprise at how light she was, how seemingly fragile. No one who didn’t know her would suspect that she was the last hope of the light. He kissed her, long, intense, with a deeper love than had been seen in a thousand years. He didn’t break away for a long time, trying to remember every detail of this moment. Life was good right then. But they had to let the seconds run through their fingers. They both knew what was coming. And they would face it together.


	14. Lucia & Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter but I liked it so I left it in...

Darkness. A dark cloud, a pulsing storm of blackness rose to the brink of her mind, threatening to push her over the edge. She shivered, chills of dark premonition creeping down her spine. The calm before the storm. A snap of blue lightning forked through through the night, and a split second later a deafening clap of thunder pushed her over the edge. She opened her eyes, she was laying in bed just a foot or two from Jack’s cot. “Jack.” she whispered, “He’s here.”  
Jack grabbed her hand. It vibrated erratically in his own. Her eyes glowed deep yellow, and the strands of black hair falling over her face created an odd and almost mesmerizing picture.   
Before they could get up, their mother ran in. she knelt down between them, and grabbed both of their hands, tears welling in her eyes. “You know what we have to do.” She couldn’t go on. Lucia and Jack looked back. “We know.” they whispered. She squeezed their hands so hard they were about to snap. “Stay here for now. You’ll know if we need you. We’ll be back before you know it.” “Don’t even try.” Jack shook his head in mock disappointment. Rey smiled, tears clinging to her lashes, threatening to fall if she stayed with her children one more second. She gave them a look to last forever. Then she turned, vanishing into the darkness.


	15. The Last Skywalkers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is legitimately the end. I thought Anakin should have played a way bigger part in TROS so here he is for real. I hope you liked my alternate ending, honestly it is more of a very condensed episode X because it would be weird to have the emperor return twice in one move...:) Let me know what you think of the story in the comments!

She felt the first drop of rain roll off her shoulder. Could she hear the drops soaking into the ground, or was it just that her senses were intensely heightened, ready to fight at any sound, any breath of darkness? She wrapped her hand around the hilt of her lightsaber with a vice-like grip, not igniting it for fear of giving away her location. She felt Ben come up behind her, step up by her side. She looked up and caught the glint of his velvety brown eyes through the rain, now pouring, soaking into her clothes, yet somehow giving her strength. Cold raw clarity washing over her. He found her hand in the blue-black night, squeezing her wet hand. The warmth of his firm grip reminded her of her promise, to herself, to Ben, to her children. Everything in her seemed to wake up. I will not be broken. To hell with caution. She squeezed Ben’s hand, gave him the slightest nod, and flicked her thumb over the hilt of her lightsaber. A hum of raw power, and sizzling yellow lit up her face. Ben’s saber crackled to life, and the yellow light created a hallow, a spotlight around the two of them. Yellow. When red and green light shine over each other, the light turns yellow. Perfect Balance. A powerful Force. A figure, much taller than a man, robed in a black deeper than night, hood obscuring the features, glided to the edge of the circle of light. An unnatural red glow emanated from beneath the hood. The figure raised its head and met Rey’s gaze with eyes that crackled red, burnt like the dark side condensed into two points of light. A voice slithered from beneath the hood, hissing like white hot metal dropped in water, “Foolish children. You thought you had destroyed me. No. you destroyed the Sith. I am so much more than them”. A laugh as cold as death itself cut through the air. “I am the emperor.” he took a step into the ring of light, opening his arms as if to fold Rey into an embrace, “and I couldn’t leave my granddaughter behind.” Rey didn’t flinch. She felt the light coursing through her, rebelling against the dark. Ben flinched for her. He could handle things coming at him, he had dealt with that for a decade, but when darkness threatened Rey he could unravel at the slightest tug. She was his anchor, his balance, his love. He had compassion for her in every sense of the word. He had given his life for her once, and he would do it again in less than a heartbeat. Suddenly the storm broke. A shuddering pulse of energy blasted into Rey, and her mind reeled. This was a kind of raw power she hadn’t felt before. She was blinded for a moment, beams of roaring energy crashing into her. She tried to breath but she felt like she was in an ocean, trapped in a current with waves crashing her back under the surface, filling her mouth and nose and ears with biting salt water. She felt herself lifted off the ground, caught in a beam of darkness that she could not resist. She had not expected anything like this. Her mind shrank away from her complete helplessness in the face of this new emperor. Through the haze of crackling redness clogging her throat and veiling her eyes she heard the slithering voice mocking her. “You think you are strong. You are terribly mistaken.” She felt herself crashing through nothing and then she was on her back on the ground, completely unable to breathe, choking, coughing, stabbing pains in her back and lungs from being slammed into the ground. The rain soaked into her clothes, cold and shivering, but the cold rivulets streaming down her arms and face felt almost refreshing after the pulsing dark of a moment ago. She was able to breathe shallowly, but a deep breath and a searing pain split her ribs. She was sure at least some of them were broken. She tried to stand up, but with a flick of the emperor’s finger she was back on the ground. She painfully turned her head just a bit and saw Ben rooted the ground a few yards away from her, his eyes pleading, not for himself but for her. She barely whispered, “Ben…” “enough of that.” the emperor hissed, and his voice sounded almost serrated. “Let’s have some fun before the end. I wouldn’t let my granddaughter go without some fireworks.” Streams of icy blazing lightning shot out of his withered hands, sizzling over her body. She screamed, the harsh sound grating and catching in her throat till she choked. The sound cut Ben like a blade. He strained against the unbreakable tension streaming from the emperor, desperate to reach her, but his limbs were frozen. She writhed on the ground, her face frozen. After what seemed like forever the lighting sizzled into the night air and she went completely limp, sparks still crackling around her. He released Ben for a few seconds, and he ran to her, halfway picking her up, cradling her in his lap like he had done fifteen years ago, rocking gently. “Ben…” she whispered. “Don’t leave...please…” “Never.” he bent over and kissed her softly as if she might break at the slightest pressure. “Ahh, look at the sweet love birds. But I think the girl needs a little more. Hope remains, and we can’t have that.” “NO! Please, do whatever you want to me, don’t hurt her, please! Please don’t hurt her, just kill me, as slowly as you want, just leave her alone!” Ben tried to keep the sob out of his voice but lost the battle. “Oh, but it’s much more effective to let you watch.” The emperor sneared, wrenching Rey out of his arms and pulling Ben away. The lightning set every fiber of her body on fire. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t make a sound. She jerked erratically, just wanting everything to stop, to die or live she didn’t care. Breath was impossible. Faintly she heard Ben yelling, begging, asking for death himself rather than watching her broken. “Jack!” Lucia whisper-screamed. “He’s destroying them! Come on. We can take him down.” The light of battle gleamed in her glowing eyes, and her rock hard reckless determination seemed out of place radiating from her tiny bird-like frame. They ran, their non-existent noise blotted out by the pouring rain. They stood twenty feet behind the towering black form. Jack grabbed Lucia’s hand and squeezed so hard he almost broke it. “Together we can take him down.” she whispered. “Ready?” Jack gave her the slightest nod. Hands linked, they stretched out their free hands and felt a wave of pulsing energy crash into the emperor. He stumbled, almost tipping forward, but regained his balance, turning to face the twins. He laughed, his ice cold serrated mocking laugh. “You foolish children think you can stand against me? I will--” His words caught sharply and he swayed. Ben stood behind him focusing all his willpower on the emperor’s destruction. Together the three called up every shred of light they had and hurled it. The energy flow was so intense, so concentrated that the waves recalled the sound of a huge drum beating in the distance. Rey felt the agony cease as quickly as it had begun. She drew a shuddering breath into her burning lungs and raised her head with an effort. Her grandfather was pinned between the three people she loved most in the world. But even with their combined energy they were slowly being pushed back one step at a time. He would not take her family away from her. Using every last ounce of determination she had left she pulled herself up. Her side screamed and her broken ribs sent stabbing pains through her entire body, but somehow she struggled over to Ben and grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers with his, and reaching out her free hand. Shockwaves crashed into the emperor, his granddaughter bending her will against him. Slowly, each pair began to close in around the towering figure, Jack and Lucia linked together on one side, Ben and Rey on the other, raging unflinching burning willpower propelling them forward one inch at a time. The emperor was deflecting them with a reckless hatred that slowly morphed into living darkness, tendrils of inky curling snaking smoke crawling out from him and twisting toward the children first. A creeping tendril wrapped around Lucia’s wrist, jerking her hand down violently. She cried out as the writhing smoke twisted around her neck. “Stop!” Ben yelled with the force of a love so pure it would try to crush anything in its way. The emperor cackled, a hideous bone-chilling sound, as the twisting smoke, icy extensions of his blackened spirit, curled around each of them, trying to pull them away from each other. “You are hopeless. You thought that together your little family could destroy me. You are alone. And now I will kill you one by one, so the rest of you can watch. The galaxy will be in my grasp, and I will have destroyed the last Skywalkers.” But in the middle of all that darkness, the end of life itself seeping out of the father of evil, a clear voice rang out and a blue light tangled with the black smoke and pushed it back. “Impressive. Every word of what you just said was wrong. Our family will destroy you, once and for all. Death will not win the day. The galaxy will be rid of you and shall never bow before the emperor of nothing. Hope always lives. And they are not the last Skywalkers.” Luke’s hands linked with Rey’s and Jack’s, and Leia’s with Ben and Lucia’s. The circle was complete. The blue light radiating from Luke and Leia was crystal clear and almost blinding. The black tendrils hissed as they were pushed back, and the emperor struggled to creak out one last sentence. “The darkness always finds a way. I will be back.” A sudden wind roared, whipping through the circle. The wind was cold as a storm at sea, but it was not threatening. Although no human form appeared, words were carried on the wind, heard by all but flowing into the emperor. “They say no one’s ever really gone. But it’s time for us to leave, once and for all.” Anakin’s voice swirled around the emperor, clinging at the cloak and whipping the hood back. At that moment, the first rays of sun spilled over the island, and bathed the emperor in perfect golden light. The figure appeared to shrivel, the cloak sucked into the whirlwind, the light crashing into the darkness and tearing it down. Rey watched in awe as the eyes, two points of glaring red light, glowed vividly, blindingly red and then crackled out. For a split second after the eyes of the dark side died, there was complete and utter silence. Sound was sucked out of the entire galaxy. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, the universe stopped. Then a crack of thunder so loud it almost shattered her ears split the galaxy, reverberating around space. And then it was over. Over. done. What had been a whipping wind blew gently away, a warm summer breeze, an entity that had fulfilled its purpose once and for all, and was glad to be really and truly gone. As Anakin left the realm of existence forever, the last words carried on the breeze so lightly they were almost imperceptible. The seven words sighed through the circle of the last Skywalkers. “May the Force be with you...Always”.


End file.
